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Chairman’s Update

It’s been quite a busy week for Bishop Auckland Football Club at Heritage Park. The grass is growing nicely on the new pitch and Director of Facilities Brian Watson and Grounds Man Gary Ventriss met with Tim Colclough of TGMS Ltd to review and sign off the work that has been carried out. The new sprinkler system is very impressive. The advantages of installing them include being able to centrally control when they come on and off and their coverage of the pitch is so much better than the sprinkler system we have previously used.

Other work Brian is currently planning is the cleaning of the outsides of the main stand and the stand behind the goal.

We held a Board Meeting on Monday and welcomed Steve Coulthard on to the Board. Steve is a local businessman who is Chairman of St Mary’s Juniors and he also will be running the Under 18 team this season after his Under 17 team won their league, unbeaten, last season. Steve will help us strengthen our links with St Mary’s and Community Football in general.

Darlington’s fixtures were published on Wednesday and included a game at HP on the 9th when we had asked that no fixtures be arranged then and also midweek games on a Tuesday when we had agreed their midweek games would be on Wednesday’s. Dave Watson of Darlington contacted the Chief Executive of the National League immediately and they agreed to move the game scheduled for the 9th to a later date and that whilst Darlington are at HP they will play midweek games on a Wednesday night.

With the pitch unavailable our FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round draw on the 6th August has been kind to us in that we have been drawn away to Thornaby but no replay please! We have been drawn away to Bedlington Terriers on the 10th September in the FA vase.

Terry Jackson and myself had meetings during the week for future bookings of our function room including the possibility of a weekly booking throughout the year. More details when confirmed! We talked with Jenna of Slimming World who uses out room two days each week and she is delighted with the facilities.

Our Supporters Club met at Heritage Park on Tuesday. Gavin Hadden is taking the reigns as Secretary and they are arranging a fund raising night at Spice Island on 8th August. I attended the last one held there and I can assure you it is a good night with excellent food! Gavin also plans to organise a bus for our Northern league game in August.

Season tickets have started selling well so thanks to those who have bought them and if you want to buy a season ticket online then please go to the ‘Club Shop’ section of the website. We are currently re-stocking the Club shop for next season. We are looking at stocking ‘Managers’ coats amongst the usual stock of replica shirts, scarves, hats etc.

We are getting a lot of positive feedback about the new website and once again the Club can’t thank Richard Cooke of Comtek Ltd enough for all the time and effort he has personally put in getting it up and running.

Our first pre-season friendly takes place on Monday against Sunderland West End. Note the venue is at Houghton Kepier School (DH4 5BH) and the kick-off is 7:15.